Re: [vox-tech] PPPd Issues

On Thu, 2 Nov 2000, Patrick B. Lickiss wrote:
> Well for anyone monitoring my modem issues I finally got one that
> works. I set up a connection to the UCD modem pool and selected the
> option to start the connection when the computer boots up. When I boot,
>
> RH tells me that it's bringing up eth0, then ppp0, but the modem never
> dials.
do you have an ethernet connection?!? why the modem then?
> After I log in and everything the computer says that ppp0 is
> connected but it's not.
ppp0 should not be 'up' unless you tell it to be up. just out of
curiosity, what makes you think that ppp0 is up? did you type something
like "ifconfig ppp0 up" or "if-up"? remember, after you log in, you need
to TELL the modem to dial. it's not supposed to do it without you telling
it to!
> The only way (I've found) to make it actually
> dialup is to delete the dial-up connection and the modem, set them both
> up again and have the dial-up configuration window open when I dial.
how do you delete the dial-up connection? ifconfig ppp0 down?
> Anyway, I'm fairly sure this should not be the case at all. So...anyone
>
> got any hints? Also, I get the same problem if the connection dies @ 2
> hrs. It will only re-connect if I manually disconnect it before the 2
> hrs are reached. Any ideas on this one?
yep.
give pppd the option "persist". i don't know how to do this on a redhat
machine offhand, but you can try to use net-config (net-cfg?). also, look
at /etc/ppp/options.
> Thanks for your time guys.
> P.S. Any reason to set up IP chains on a dial-up machine that MSAQ's to
> an internal network?
you mean ip masquerades *for* other machines? if that's the case, then
ipchains is already setup on that machine.
but if you mean whether you should firewall your machine if it's a dialup
machine, then prolly not.
mike simons once told me an interesting story that someone had hacked into
his machine while he was using the modem (no other net connection). they
fdisk'ed his computer and deleted all the partitions. he didn't know it
happnened until he rebooted his computer and found .... nothing.
that story being told, if you have decent password security on your system
and disable net services that you don't use, then firewalling a dialup machine
might be overkill. security nazi's might tell you otherwise, but security
is simply a matter of convenience vs safety. on a dialup machine, i
wouldn't do anything stupid, but also, i wouldn't knock myself out either.
pete